By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — "It defies imagination," the head of City Council's transportation committee James Vacca told the New York Daily News.
Vacca is fuming over an investigation, published this weekend, which charged that the MTA spent $21.3 million, $23,000 each, on subway security cameras that don't even work.
The newspaper reported that 54 percent of the 4,100 cameras do not record, and won't until next month at the earliest.
"[It's] a serious problem," Gov. David Paterson told the News, "For every camera that's not working, it's a grim invitation to crime in the subway."
Security cameras have become a hot topic in the wake of the failed Times Square bombing earlier this month.
Last Tuesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited London to learn about its "Ring of Steel" network of security cameras, which includes 12,000 devices in the subway alone.
The MTA also drew criticism last March, when a man stabbed two others to death in the Christopher Street subway station. There were no surveillance cameras in the station, requiring police to search for footage through neighboring businesses.
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced last week that the city would have a system of 3,000 cameras in Lower Manhattan by 2015, part of the "Lower Manhattan Security Initiative," with similar plans under consideration for Midtown.
